1. Field of the Description
The present description relates, in general, to amusement park rides and other entertainment rides such as round rides, and, more particularly, to amusement or theme park round rides configured to position passenger vehicles, which are mounted upon the ends of support or main arms, in at least two ride zones such as a first ride zone (i.e., a low zone) and a second ride zone (i.e., a high zone) to increase ride capacity while maintaining typical footprint and ride vehicle spacing characteristics. Passenger ride experiences are also enhanced by providing a larger range of vehicle speeds, a greater range of vehicle heights, and an improved amount of vehicle-to-vehicle interaction during swaps between ride or fly zones.
2. Relevant Background
Amusement and theme parks are popular worldwide with hundreds of millions of people visiting the parks each year. Park operators continuously seek new designs for rides that attract and entertain guests in new ways. Many parks include round rides that include vehicles or gondolas mounted on support arms extending outward from a centrally located hub or rotation assembly. The passengers or riders sit in the vehicles and are rotated in a circle about the drive assembly, which spins about its central axis. In some of these rides, the passengers may operate an interactive device, such as a joystick in the vehicle, to make the support arm and their attached vehicle gradually move upward or downward within a limited, preset range (e.g., from about horizontal to a 45 degree angle relative to horizontal or the platform upon which the drive assembly is mounted). Some rides also allow the passengers to control the pitch of their vehicle.
A goal of park operators is to increase the number of passengers or riders that can experience each ride to improve the capacity and thereby limit the time spent waiting in lines. One of the biggest issues with multi-arm round rides is that there is a capacity limitation that is based on the number of arms that can be connected to the rotating center structure. In many round rides, the support arms are movable by the vehicle passengers or by a ride control system through a fixed range of angles such as through 45 degrees, and this vertical angle range may be thought of as a fixed or limited motion workspace or fly zone. As a result, the number of arms and attached passenger vehicles is limited by the number of vehicles that can be positioned about the circumference of the circle defined by the end of the support arms when they are at their most vertical orientation. Particularly, the vehicles cannot contact each other or interfere not only at the low point of the workspace where the circle is larger but also at the high point of the workspace at which point the circumference of the circle is much smaller. For example, a ride may be able to accommodate 20 vehicles and support arms when the support arms are at a lower point of the limited motion workspace or fly zone, but, due to vehicle interference, the ride may only be able to accommodate 16 vehicles at higher points of the fly zone (such as nearer to 45 degrees from the horizontal plane). In other words, the capacity is limited by vehicle spacing in the circular flight path of vehicles at the high end of the fly zone.
In addition to physical limitations based on available space, there are experiential limitations to round rides that may dictate use of fewer than the maximum number of support arms and passenger vehicles that could be used in the ride. For example, in round rides, it is generally not desirable to allow adjacent vehicles (a leading vehicle and a following vehicle) to be too close together because the passengers' sightlines are typically severely obstructed as all the following vehicle may see is the tail portion of the leading vehicle. If the vehicles are tightly packed together, the passengers may feel cramped and not enjoy the ride experience. Also, since all the vehicles move through the same fly zone (e.g., a 45 degree workspace), adding more and more vehicles increases the number of arms moving through this workspace, which further exacerbates sightline problems and can create a general unpleasant feeling of congestion.
Hence, there remains a need for new round rides that address capacity issues while retaining desirable characteristics such as a small footprint, guest control of vehicle elevation, and relatively simple rotation and arm positioning assemblies. Preferably, the new rides would also improve other aspects of the ride experience such as by providing enhanced sightlines and a larger range of ride dynamics (e.g., bigger range of vehicle speeds than achievable with a 0 to 45 degree workspace) and by providing variation within the ride such that there are multiple, different experiences within the same ride cycle.